Drum Buss Comp

[ArroldW]

Its been talked about multiple times, and multiple threads. Just wondering if anyone on THIS forum is using a drum buss compressor. I have heard of engineers not compressing the drum buss, but each shell drum track [bass drum, snare, toms] separately, and compressing the over head mics, and that's it. No send to an aux track or a drum buss.

If you are using a drum compressor; which one are you guys using? and What type of ratio are you working with majority of the time? [I am a 4.01:1 guy, myself] And if you are not using a drum buss comp; what are you doing? I would be nice to try other techniques out.

 

[Tommy Evans]

Right now i'm comping all my shells seperately (kick, snare, one comp for the toms) then sending them to another compressor on the shell buss where I also use a gclipper and a ferric tds. (both free from KVR)

 

[JeffEstrada]

THIS

 

[timislegend]

L1

 

[JeffEstrada]

Basically on my kick and snare tracks, my chain usually looks like this:
EQ > Transient Designer > Gclip

Then I have the Duende SSL buss comp on the drum buss with light settings.

 

[gotet10]

L1

+1!! I don't feel the need to do anything to the drum bus if you can get everything sounding good on it's own channel.

 

[JeffEstrada]

+1!! I don't feel the need to do anything to the drum bus if you can get everything sounding good on it's own channel.

I agree...with half of that. Im not saying there's a right or wrong way, we just all have different styles in mixing It's good like you said to get all your drums sounding good on it's own but I feel like also having a drum buss compressor helps control the different drum levels much better before going into the master limiter. It also helps make the snare pop nicely.

 

[timislegend]

i guess it's not really fair for me to just say "L1" 'cause i put L1 on everything! then, i put a-little L1 on top of that!




sometimes... i'll even create a stereo audio track and with no audio regions ...put a stereo L1 plugin on it, just because i can!




ugh! what the hell am i doing?

 

[ShredderForhire]

Buss compression will make your drum tracks dance. It sits all of the drums in the mix as if they are one element and not seperate. The ssl buss compressor is my favorite tool for this job.

 

[Beneath_the_Bliss]

i guess it's not really fair for me to just say "L1" 'cause i put L1 on everything! then, i put a-little L1 on top of that!




sometimes... i'll even create a stereo audio track and with no audio regions ...put a stereo L1 plugin on it, just because i can!




ugh! what the hell am i doing?

wai yu so funny tim? ha, nah, I do them same with the SSL bus comp, just so I can get the rainbow of deaaath.

But seriously, SSL bus comp is hot!

 

[jeffreyfeast]

i'll use light compression to glue all of the drums together and put L1 on top of that.

 

[LuketheDuke]

I usually just compress the drums until I get the sound that I want, and then send the shells to a buss and compress the sh!t out of them (parallel comp).

 

[ArroldW]

i'll use light compression to glue all of the drums together and put L1 on top of that.

This is exactly what I am doing. SSL comp or 2500 to L1.

 

[ArroldW]

Buss compression will make your drum tracks dance. It sits all of the drums in the mix as if they are one element and not seperate. The ssl buss compressor is my favorite tool for this job.

Couldn't have said that more perfectly myself (because I didn't know).

 

[Bropocalypse]

I usually compress my snare kick and toms to taste, then have my shells out into a second bus through inserts. I have my overheads compressed to taste but try and lay off the compression or they sound washy.

I then have two drum busses, i compress the second one with a ratio of about 8:1, have quid a high threshhold and then lower it down to blend with my main drum bus and give it more punch. otherwise known as parallel compression

 

[Seth Munson]

SSL comp

 

[beechstudio]

Mixing ITB- I use Cytomic Glue and URS 1970 comps. (I buss snare and kick separately)

Mixing OTB- DBX 160x and/or 160vu, Joemeek SC2. Again bussing kick and snare separately.

 

[HunterOh9]

I use light compression on the drum bus just to glue the kit together. Low ratio. Each drum track separately I also use about 4:1.1. Try different things out though, use your ears, it might sound better or worse within the rest of your mix.

 

[tempe]

I'm rocking the SSL Duende Bus compressor at the moment, it's pretty cool.

 

[AndrewB]

I use all freeware (haven't taken it to "that level" yet), and the plug-in I use for this is Density MkII. Sounds great. I also put a little tape saturation on it, for more glue.